Good to Me (10 page)

“Uhm hum,” said Traci. “Quit trying to perpetrate and keep it real.”

“West sii—ede,” Mercedes chanted.

Iesha held her head down and took three brisk steps ahead, pretending she was not with them.

“How ’bout some Burger King?” Mercedes laughed. “Maybe that cashier can have it your way, E. Slap slap,” she said, pretending
to slap herself on both cheeks.

Iesha walked on before them to the Showmars counter and ordered her food. Mercedes and Traci stood in line behind her.

“Will you add an old-fashioned pita burger combo to that, with no onions?” a familiar male voice asked.

She turned around to find Wallace easing up beside her. He took out his wallet to pay.

“Hey, Wallace.” Iesha blushed.

“A woman after my own heart. You remember my name.”

“Do you remember mine?”

“Hmm, let me see,” he said, pretending not to remember. “Keisha. Felicia…”

“Um, mum,” Traci cleared her throat behind them.

“Oh, Wallace, these are my friends, Mercedes and Traci.”

“Hello, ladies,” he said, shaking both of their hands. “Any friend of Iesha’s is a friend of mine.”

“Hey-ey,” they sang.

“Have you ladies ordered?”

“No, but if you paying we know what we want,” Mercedes offered.

Iesha threw one of her straighten-up-or-I’ll-kill-you motherly looks at them.

“What?” Mercedes asked.

“Ma’am, will you add their orders to ours?” he asked the cashier.

Wallace carried both trays to a table while the women fixed their beverages.

“Girl, he fine,” Mercedes said, filling her cup with ice.

Traci put a lid on her cup. “He sure is and he got money. I didn’t see nothing but twenties in his wallet. He’s a good catch.”

Iesha blushed. “Y’all please act like you got some sense. I don’t wanna mess up anything if there is anything to be messed
up.” She led the way to the table where Wallace was standing.

“Are you going to eat with us?” Iesha asked him.

“No, I’m eating in the office today. I have some numbers to crunch for a two o’clock meeting.”

“Oh,” Iesha said simply. “Well, thanks for lunch. I would’ve liked to enjoy it with you.”

“Uuuuhhh,” the girls instigated.

“Then again, it’s probably a good thing that you’re not joining us,” she said, looking crossly at her friends. “When will
I see you again?”

“Don’t worry about that, it’ll be real soon.” He winked, and walked away from them.

The girls sat in silence.

“Meow,” Traci said, breaking the ice and dipping a french fry in ketchup. “Looks like we’ll be going out alone this weekend,
Sadie.”

“Looks like it, huh?”

“Chi, please,” Iesha said. “That man ain’t said nothing about the weekend. Besides, that ain’t nowhere near soon in my book,”
she laughed.

Traci bit into her pita burger. “Long as you don’t let Sha-Lai know about him. You know what happened the last time?”

Iesha’s smile turned into a frown. “I’ll beat her behind if she do that again.” She cringed after the words escaped her mouth,
remembering what happened between her and Sha-Lai last night.

“What she do?”

“You remember, she answered the phone and called Mark by Greg’s name.”

“Oh yeah,” Mercedes said, looking for pieces of grilled chicken in her salad. “She did, didn’t she?”

“That was your fault.” Traci plunged more fries into ketchup. “She wouldn’t have had that information if you hadn’t given
it to her.”

“That’s why my chaps don’t know my business,” Mercedes continued. “If he ain’t got a ring on my finger, my chaps don’t know
him. Shequanna’s chaps done had three or four daddies. Every man she bring home they call daddy.”

“Well, I know now,” Iesha said. “Sha-Lai just getting to be too grown.” She took another bite of her fish sandwich. “She runs
her mouth too much and I messed around and hit her last night.”

The girls looked at each other. “Messed around?” Traci asked. “You’re infamous for whooping at least one of your chaps nightly.
Every time I call, at least one of them done got one of the three B’s before bedtime.”

Traci high-fived Mercedes. “A bath, a beat down, or some Benadryl, and not necessarily in that order.”

They all laughed. “Long as you ain’t leave no bruises on her,” Traci said. “You know they check them chaps at school these
days.”

“You right about that,” Mercedes interjected. “That’s how what’s-her-name got her chaps taken away last year.”

Traci snapped her fingers, trying to recall who Mercedes was talking about. “Um, um, Natalie.”

“That’s it, Natalie. Them white folks snatched all her chaps. That little boy went to school and told them Natalie whooped
him. And that’s all she wrote.”

“Whatever,” Iesha said, trying not to sound nervous. “They can lock me up for beating my child, but they’ll never have to
worry about locking my chaps up when they turn teenagers. That’s what’s wrong with chaps these days anyway. They mommas scared
to whoop them. Ain’t nobody gone tell me how to raise my chaps unless they helping me pay the bills.”

“Preach, sister, preach,” Mercedes mimicked.

“I ain’t saying don’t whoop her,” Traci said. “I’m just saying don’t whoop her on a school night. And whatever you do, don’t
whoop her in Wal-Mart, or in they parking lot.”

They all laughed.

“I know that’s right,” Iesha said. “Had that woman on national TV after that camera taped her in the parking lot beating that
little girl. That’s a shame. You can’t whip your chaps nowhere these days.”

Traci seemed to get serious again. “Girl, you talk a good game, but you know if something happened to any one of them kids,
you wouldn’t know what to do.”

“I couldn’t even imagine. I don’t even want to.”

EMMITT COULD NOT TELL IF THE THUMPING
was coming from inside his chest or from the bass line of the song he was playing from his
Nellyville
CD.

But his suspicion was confirmed when he turned off the Nissan Pathfinder’s ignition. Emmitt took the letter out of his manila
folder to make sure he was at the right building. Davis, Watson, and Blalock, Attorneys at Law, Present Day Office Park, 433
Charlotte Executive Park Drive, Suite 203.

“This is it,” he said, psyching himself up to get out of the vehicle and walk into the building’s entryway. He talked to himself
to slow his racing heart.
Calm down, Emmitt. Charity can’t be everywhere. Charlotte is big enough to keep you from running into each other. This is
what you want, right? The laws say the case has to be initiated in the city where the child resides. So just run in to see
this attorney and go on back to Greensboro. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Go on in. Everything
will be fine
.

“Good morning. I’m Emmitt Phillips,” he said to the young woman sitting behind the desk in the enclosed area. “I have an eleven
forty-five appointment with Mr. Blalock.”

“Good morning, Mr. Phillips. Here’s your paperwork,” the receptionist said, handing him a clipboard with forms on it and an
attached pen. “Please complete these and bring them to me when you’re done. Mr. Blalock will see you then.”

Emmitt was surprised at how calm he felt sitting there. He believed he was doing the right thing. He began to fill in the
form for new clients. As the reason for the visit, he wrote,
I want my son
. Emmitt completed his paperwork and attached his pre-paid legal card to the clipboard as instructed. He returned the clipboard
and completed form to the receptionist. It was only when he sat down that his heart resumed its racing.

He flipped through one magazine after another, not really interested in reading their contents or even attending to their
photos. He just needed something to do with his hands, or to pass the time away, or something to quell his fears.

“Mr. Phillips,” an older black gentleman called.

Emmitt walked over to him and shook his outstretched hand.

“I’m Attorney David Blalock, come on in,” he smiled.

Emmitt followed him around the posh office suite. With all of the framed newspaper articles hanging on the walls regarding
Mr. Blalock and his partners, Emmitt figured that they must be pretty good attorneys. He was glad that he chose him.

“Have a seat, Mr. Phillips,” the attorney said, motioning for him to sit in one of the three chairs around a small table in
the middle of his office. “I understand that you would like to counter-sue your ex-spouse for child custody?”

Emmitt twisted his eyebrows. “Counter-sue?”

“Yes, you want to reopen the child custody case that was awarded to your ex-wife and have it turned over in your favor. Right?”

“I guess. Can—”

“Before we go any further, I need you to be sure about what you want to do. This may not be an easy case to win.”

“I just came here to find out if it is possible for me to get custody of my son.”

“Anything’s possible in the court of law, Mr. Phillips. Especially when you are sure about what you want.”

“I am sure that I want my son.”

“Why are you just now pursuing custody after three years?”

“Two years,” he corrected.

The attorney looked at the dates on the paper. “You do realize that tomorrow is the first day of February?”

Emmitt looked like he was figuring out a math problem in his head. “It’ll be three years next week. Is that good or bad?”

“Neither really. Let’s talk about your ex-wife.”

Emmitt looked away but nodded.

“Is she on drugs or an alcoholic?”

“No.”

“Does she have a mental illness?”

“I think so,” Emmitt couldn’t help but laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh nothing. Charity is a therapist. She counsels people with mental problems. I just think she’s crazy.”

“Do you have anything we might be able to use in court?”

“No,” he frowned slightly. “Charity’s not a bad person. I just want my son.”

“Well, that kind of attitude is not going to get him back. Are you in favor of her keeping him?”

“No, but I don’t have a good reason why she shouldn’t, except that I want him.”

“Why did you two separate?”

Emmitt looked down. “She claimed I was abusive.”

“Were you?”

“I don’t think so, but she won the case based on those grounds.”

“Did you hit her?”

Emmitt hesitated. “I pushed her once. And the week before she left, she said I choked her.”

“She
said
you choked her?”

“Yeah. I really don’t remember. Things had gotten so bad between us, I could have just snapped.”

“And how will we convince the courts that you won’t ‘just snap’ on your son? What is he, six years old?” the attorney asked,
shuffling through the papers again.

Emmitt felt hot all over. “I would never hurt my son. I love him.”

“And you didn’t love your ex-wife?”

Emmitt shifted his weight in his seat. He contemplated walking out. He came looking for defense, not prosecution.

“Look, Mr. Phillips. You are not on trial here. But if you want your son back, you will be. And you can’t give up or give
away easily. Now, it seems like your ex-wife is squeaky clean—no drugs, no alcohol, no founded mental illness. She’s a therapist—”

“A minister, has her own business, yada yada yada,” Emmitt chimed sarcastically. “So, I should just give up?”

“I didn’t say that. Times have changed. The courts are becoming more favorable toward fathers these days. If a father has,
or in your shoes can get, a good case, we’ll have a good chance to overturn the original case. Do you share custody currently?”

“No, she was awarded full custody, and my mother was awarded visitation.”

“Run that by me again?”

“When the judge offered us joint custody, I refused. I wanted full custody or no custody. My mother was there and she asked
the judge for at least visitation.”

The attorney laughed out loud. “Lord, where was your attorney?”

“I didn’t have one. I represented myself.”

He laughed even louder. “You mean to tell me, you went to court on your own behalf on a child custody case? How old were you
when all of this happened?”

He counted on his fingers. “Thirty.”

“You know what they say, don’t you?”

Emmitt was already angry, so he did not answer the attorney.

“They say the fool who represents himself has a fool for an attorney.” He laughed harder, then apologized. “I just had to
say that. I’m sorry. One thing is evident,” he said, trying to pull himself together. “And that is that you love your son.
Anyone who shows up without an attorney but still determined to fight for his cause is to be commended. We’ll talk about that
later. Tell me what you have to offer that your ex-wife cannot.”

“Being a good father. A son needs his father—”

“But he also needs a mother, how will you withstand that?”

“I live with my mother—”

“Problem number one, I can tell you now, if you want to fight for your son, you are going to have to get your own residence.
Does your ex-wife have her own place?”

“Yes.”

“You are going to have to show how much you have changed over the past three years. You’re going to have to show something
for the lapsed time. And it wouldn’t hurt to have something against your ex-wife to weaken her credibility.”

Emmitt considered walking out again. Fighting against Charity was undesirable but doable. Fighting with his mother about moving
out of her place was another thing.

“Can you do it?” the attorney asked.

“Do you mind if I call you by the end of the week?”

“Mr. Phillips, you’ve already waited two—tomorrow three—years too long. What is the hesitation?”

“I’m not sure if I’m ready for all of this.”

“So, you’re not sure you’re ready to be a full-time father?”

Emmitt looked up at the ceiling. He exhaled as heavily and quickly as he inhaled. “All I know,” he said, sitting upright in
the chair, “is that my father was never there for me. He was only a check in the mail. I want more than that for my son. I
want to be a father, a daddy. I don’t want my son to be where I am. I’m thirty-two years old and I feel obligated to stay
with my mom. I don’t want my son to have to fulfill my role in my absence, like I’m doing for my dad with my mom. Yes, I’ll
do what’s necessary to get my boy.”